A THQ SEC Filing (Adobe Acrobat format) reveals more fiscal bad news for the publisher, following a a recent collapse of its stock. The filing reveals THQ is in default on a line of credit from Wells Fargo, leading to a delayed 10-Q filing, and a situation that sounds tenuous at best: "The Company is currently in discussions with Wells Fargo regarding the asserted defaults and believes that it will reach an agreement with Wells Fargo with respect to such defaults. Wells Fargo has continued to fund requests from the Company after September 30, 2012 while Wells Fargo and the Company attempt to reach an agreement. There can be no assurance, however, that the Company will achieve an agreement with Wells Fargo." Thanks nin via Kotaku/Polygon.

And failing to keep enough interest in running the servers properly to avoid the storefront having problems in a big sale

Steam's up-time during sales certainly sucks, but I try to cut them a little slack. Last I heard Steam had a user base of around 30 million people. When I imagine how many of those are clicking 'refresh' on their browser during the Steam Xmas Sales week at 12:00 pm (U.S. Central time for me) it becomes a little easier to understand why I can't even load the store page more than once every 10 tries or so.

Yeah... I cut them slack years ago. When it keeps happening EVERY SINGLE big sale and release, no. They have all sorts of data on trends and how much percent they grow on each sale. They could easily project, double the projection, and prepare and have extra capacity for those special events. It wouldn't cost them that much to rent out some extra servers. The additional sales they'd make for the additional uptime would probably more than make up for it.

The worst part is, you can check content server stats during any of these problems and they are NEVER 100% for a region. Which means its all in the load balancing, they have plenty of actual bandwidth, just nothing that actually handles it. If you have twice (or in their case more) the capacity sitting idle and its not getting used but your storefront is crapping out, there's something wrong. You are wasting money on capacity if you can't ever actually USE it. And if you are already paying so much for all that extra capacity, its not that much to get extra load balancing to actually USE it.

Its not money thats a problem for valve obviously, so what is it? Its not that they don't have the data or don't expect massive sales to happen, its not a surprise to them, so what is it?The remaining explanations include things like lack of knowledge/expertise, lack of manpower, and --somewhat unique to valve--lack of employee interest in fixing the problem. Since they have no money problems, lack of manpower could easily be remedied. And if they can't find enough people that pass their hiring process which is what gabe has said previously, then they need to contract it out. That would solve those other potential issues too, including lack of employee interest and lack of expertise/knowledge about how to fix.

If Nintendo was smart they would acquire THQ for darksiders and Saints row and fund them properly. They have all that Wii money. But given how braindead Nintendo is as a company I don't see it happening.

Theres lots of talent at THQ it's a tragedy the company was run by idiots.

And failing to keep enough interest in running the servers properly to avoid the storefront having problems in a big sale

Steam's up-time during sales certainly sucks, but I try to cut them a little slack. Last I heard Steam had a user base of around 30 million people. When I imagine how many of those are clicking 'refresh' on their browser during the Steam Xmas Sales week at 12:00 pm (U.S. Central time for me) it becomes a little easier to understand why I can't even load the store page more than once every 10 tries or so.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Anyway, sucks, because they do have some fun IPs. But they're going to be dead pretty soon. Maybe someone else will pick up Saints Row. Our luck knowing it will be EA or Activision who will turn it into a giant piece of yearly shit.

Verno wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 09:43:I don't think they're going to make it to March 2013 at this rate SR4, COH2, Metro LL, so many good games down the drain. Shame that they were mismanaged for so long.

If a private equity firm grabs them we might see those games launched at least.

aesir05 wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 04:49:if they do go under, would steam sell their stuff for $1 each?

Valve cannot just sell games for cheap, if a publisher doesnt give his ok. And if THQ goes under, there will be a new copyright holder, who decides the prices.

Valve does only one thing. Trying to convince publishers and other distribution right holders, that a Steam sale works wonders on their revenue, with disatrous effects on the credit limits of the customers.

And failing to keep enough interest in running the servers properly to avoid the storefront having problems in a big sale

aesir05 wrote on Nov 12, 2012, 04:49:if they do go under, would steam sell their stuff for $1 each?

Valve cannot just sell games for cheap, if a publisher doesnt give his ok. And if THQ goes under, there will be a new copyright holder, who decides the prices.

Valve does only one thing. Trying to convince publishers and other distribution right holders, that a Steam sale works wonders on their revenue, with disatrous effects on the credit limits of the customers.

Jackplug wrote on Nov 11, 2012, 23:31:THQ have backed some really awful games in the past, so its obvious to see what's gone wrong.

Every publisher has backed stinkers in the past. Bethesda, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, 2K... funding some crappy games isn't what makes you go out of business. If that were the case, Bethesda would already be out of business because 99% of their catalog is trash. Poor management and a lack of a top-selling IP is what makes publishers go out of business. THQ's biggest IP is Saints Row but even that doesn't really hold a candle to the Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creeds, CoDs, etc. It's not enough to carry the company.